


Snake in the Grass (The Startling)

by brocon-the-destroyer (brocon)



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Gen, Humor, Prompt Fill, Snakes, this isn't very shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:38:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4104523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brocon/pseuds/brocon-the-destroyer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hisoka tells terrible, contrived jokes at the expense of Chrollo when he suggests a heist at a zoo.</p><p>The snake was spooked by Hisoka's ass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snake in the Grass (The Startling)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first HisoKuro fic, even though it's not very shippy, I hope you enjoy it!

 

When Hisoka suggested a lucrative heist they should have been hesitant to hear him out. He always did the bare minimum as far as constructive input, planning, and general responsibilities that came with being adults in an organized crime group. Hisoka showed up (maybe), ignored most of the briefing (or at least appeared to) and then asked who, if anyone, he wasn’t allowed to kill. He’d then go no-holds-barred on the first victim of the mission.

Sometimes he would declare a small victorious ‘ _first_ ❤’ and rile the others into future competition to beat him at getting first kill; whatever reward that held was something only Hisoka knew.

When Hisoka explained that the heist was of rare animals from a zoo they should have been suspicious of his motives. He smiled sweetly while explaining how much some animal pelts went for on the black market; how much the meat went for when sold to gourmet hunters (of which he insisted he had the connections); and that even if they wanted to take an easier middle-man route there were other willing full-time beast smugglers that would pay handsomely.

The troupe could handle wrangling a few beasts and dealing with the level of security standard for a large city zoo. They’d done much heavier jobs for less rewards for sure. The only potential deal-breaker was any moral reservations on a personal basis concerning the buying and selling of animals. To this, Hisoka said gently, those individuals can just sit this one out.

To see Hisoka so adamant and ambitious about the execution of something as bizarre as a zoo heist should have raised red flags for every member. But unfortunately, he had sold them on it. His charm was half as effective as the numbers he pulled to prove the profit against potential losses. He handed out a roster with photographs of the animals highlighting distinguishable features and stats on how to identify and avoid being compromised by the deadlier ones. The amount of research involved was laughably incredulous coming from him.

Even Machi couldn’t berate his suggestion after his sales pitch. She was loathe to admit it, but he had put thought into it. Uvogin was the first on board to literally wrestle bears.

When Hisoka suddenly became a team-player that contributed as anything more than a glorified murder machine coincidentally after having a scrap with the big boss they should have denied him outright on justified paranoia. Hisoka had barely been in the troupe for a year and he had wasted the good graces anyone may have given him in his curious little remarks on the basic structures of The Spiders. Recently they could hear him knocking on the foundations of their workings, trying to find the weakest column to play with.

“Danchou, your coin flipping system is a bit flawed, don’t you think?” His yellow eyes watched Phinks toss a coin into the air with a clenched jaw and a fuming Feitan stand next to him. Chrollo’s eyes raised from watching them and Hisoka looked pleased to just get his attention.

“How so?” He was terse and there was no curiosity in the question. In the short time since Hisoka had joined there had already formed an unsavory history that was palpable every time they had an exchange.

“One could easily rig the flip in their favor. Seems like it would create more competition than settle disputes.” Hisoka took out the coin he had been given upon joining, spinning it idly on a cord of bungee gum. “To see who could manipulate the coin best without being caught.”

Feitan had won the coin toss and his eyes turned upward in a small smile. “The coins are custom made. They are resistant to nen affects.” He turned his gaze away from Hisoka as if he no longer was interested in the conversation, but it was clear that others were interested now that their other entertainment was over. Hisoka had actually shown up for a meeting, and now it was obvious to everyone that he’d come only to be antagonistic.

“Resistant? Doesn’t that just mean difficulty mode on high?”

“In the same way that nothing is truly immune to any and all nen, yes. Its immunity lasts as long as it finds no one stronger.”

“Poetic. Much like the way we work, right? ♣”

The few spiders standing in their midst defensively turned towards the clown engaging their leader. The tension had practically manifest itself physically as Hisoka took it upon himself to sit beside Chrollo, still spinning the coin in pink nen, and refusing to be ignored. Chrollo seemed to shut down as soon as Hisoka sat down. He found his place in the ancient book he had been reading as if to discourage this attempted intimacy between them.

“But then, that assumes that the coin is the real deal, doesn’t it?”

Chrollo was reading the same page for too long as if he were waiting to hear his own response but not wanting to respond. His jaw ticked. “There are ways to tell if they are genuine.”

“You’d have to be checking though. Every single time.” He said cheerfully, “You didn’t check just now.”

The brown eyes went back to Hisoka then to see him pinching the coin with two fingers and holding it between them tauntingly. _Check it_ , he seemed to say. His yellow eyes sparked against the sour expression he had elicited from the man before him. Chrollo gently struck his hand away in firm refusal. “It’s integrity, Hisoka. Lying makes communication worthless. No one will trust you.”

Chrollo stood up and left the meeting early. Hisoka was left awkwardly in his wake with a residual smile as the rest of the troupe disbanded in tow. A few shot him dirty looks.

Not even a month had passed, and Hisoka had suggested this heist. The atmosphere was heavy between them but it couldn’t keep the corners of Hisoka’s lips weighed down. Chrollo had given him the benefit of the doubt, and said to the others in confidence that perhaps he was trying to regain trust. After all, he was still relatively new and hadn’t actually done anything worthy of being called betrayal. Just a lot of dodgy movements, underwhelming initiative, and verbal knife-twisting. They could overlook most of it. And now at least he was attempting to display initiative.

The Spiders that had been interested enough to show up were Uvogin, Nobunaga, Machi, Shizuku, and Phinks. Shalnark wasn’t interested, but Hisoka specifically requested him to hack some of the electronic cages; he didn’t protest. Nobunaga had kept quiet about whether or not he intended to go, but as soon as Uvogin declared he intended to wrestle a bear and possibly a lion if he could manage it was generally assumed that he wouldn’t let the giant tackle animals without some kind of voice of reason. They were right to assume he would show up.

Machi insisted, despite having agreed with the pitch when Hisoka made it, that it was a trap. She had never trusted Hisoka. Not from day one. She was blindsided by his numbers before. Now, the evening on which they were to head out to the zoo, she was raising concerns.

“I will team up with him,” Chrollo said, “and I will assess his intentions.”

There was an uncomfortable air about this suggestion, but there wasn’t much that could be said in protest. Chrollo could take care of himself and didn’t like the idea of being so indispensable that they couldn’t risk him being with one other spider without some kind of assurance or supervision. His decisions were usually for the best.

“Was I late again, or was the meeting time moved up without me?” Hisoka called, walking over to stand next to Chrollo as if he had heard they would be teaming up. Or was expecting to be teamed up with Chrollo despite any other intentions. “Good thing I came early ♠”

“You and I will be teaming up, Hisoka, since it was your idea.” Chrollo said, making his presence sound like a reward. “Uvogin and Nobunaga will head to the northeast to capture the two-headed bear, Shalnark will be on security duty, Shizuku will go with him to monitor the cameras—if it gets messy, urm, despite the fact that these are rare and valuable pieces of merchandise,” He glanced at Uvogin, “she will clean up the bodies. Phinks and Machi will go northwest to the reptiles—”

“Ahem.” Hisoka said, too loudly for it not to be an interruption. “I believe I was to attend to the reptiles.”

“It changed.” Chrollo tried, looking slightly uncomfortable for offering no better an explanation than that.

“In the time between this early meeting starting and me getting here, it changed? It must be a very important detail I overlooked that influenced this decision.” He said calmly, shoving his hands in his pockets and waiting patiently to hear the moments of tense silence that followed. After a few more ticks, he rescued them from the awkwardness. “We need Machi’s nen threads to restrain the birds’ wings so they do not injure themselves or us.” He punctuated his helpful reminder with a glance in Machi’s direction. “Unless she has a problem with it?”

Machi shook her head slowly, looking at Chrollo as though he would tell her how to answer this trick question. Chrollo sighed, not taking his eyes off the roster of photos Hisoka had given him. “You are correct. We will continue with the original arrangement then.”

 

The reptile building was hot and small. With the overhead lights out and the heating lamps on over every tank and enclosure their faces were lit in heavy shadows similar to when Chrollo lit a bunch of candles. Chrollo looked in his natural element, but the darkened lines on his face were heavier than usual. The inconsistent and sometimes jerky movements in the cages all around him made his head spin. The spotlights all around made it hard for the eye to discern what it should ignore or pay attention to.

It was going to be difficult to be exact on which reptiles were worth the most. Some of them were mixed into the same tanks and it was hard to tell which name belonged to which colorful lizard. There were hundreds, maybe more, in this small building. Chrollo tried to read the descriptions that accompanied each enclosure, but realized that ‘endangered’ or ‘rare’ didn’t necessarily mean valuable. He tried in vain to look through the dark at the photos in the roster as Hisoka walked around examining each of the scaled and agitated beasts.

He tapped the cage of one blotchy orange snake, crooning “Hey there, buddy ♥” The snake made an audible hiss and went instantly for Hisoka’s finger. “Hmm, what an abnormally aggressive species” he smiled and shadows settled into his dimples.

“Do not tap on the glass.” The smaller man chimed in quickly. He hadn’t seen it, but Hisoka swore that he had moved a few steps backwards.

“Did you just—read that sign over there out loud?”

Chrollo didn’t respond but walked away from the large snake still poised to attack Hisoka. He approached a tricolored frog and squinted hard at it. “Is this one on the list? Perhaps we should turn on the lights overhead and compare it to the roster. I assume you have more of an ability to recognize the ones on the list than I do.”

Hisoka responded with a _shhhhh_ and Chrollo turned to see him using a lock pick on the cage with the large aggressive snake. It clicked open in a moment, and Hisoka turned on a pointed heel to pick the lock of another large artificial desert terrain with multiple smaller snakes.

“ _What are you doing_?” They hadn’t been given the clear from Shalnark yet. He was walking away from the unlocked cages. The head spider’s breath hitched in his throat.

Hisoka didn’t say anything as he continued to unlock cages rapidly.

“Hisoka, stop this instant!” He felt a sheen of sweat break out on his forehead. His eyes darted from cage to cage and had no idea how many Hisoka had already unlocked. They weren’t latched and it was only a matter of time before the more intelligent snakes figured out how to nudge the glass lids and doors open. Hisoka didn’t stop.

Chrollo turned his back on the frogs and quickly crossed the gap between them. Hisoka was bent over another seemingly random enclosure containing a red rattlesnake. Hisoka clicked his tongue lightly as a gloved hand fell on his shoulder and turned him around. The clown had the audacity to look earnestly confused at the glare piercing him between the eyes. “Hm?”

A lid clattered to the floor and Chrollo visibly jumped. Hisoka raised an eyebrow and placed a hand over the one that had been forgotten on his shoulder. That seemed to bring Chrollo back to himself as he jerked his hand away. A snake the size of a yard stick slithered out onto the floor. “Don’t just stand there, grab it.”

“You grab it.”

“ _You_ let it out.”

“Oh Danchou, you never argue with me like this.” His eyes were locked on Chrollo’s as the sound of another snake flopping onto the floor reached the both of them. Sweat beaded visibly on Chrollo’s forehead as his eyes ran along the floor and over the snakes. Hisoka could almost swear his dark eyes were trembling a bit. Or maybe it was the lighting.

A hiss rose from somewhere on the floor and Chrollo’s posture straightened up subconsciously as though it would lift him up and away from the sound. “Hi-Hisoka, pick them up!” He crossed his arms across his chest tightly as though he were, as his leader, commanding him. His arms were visibly shaking beneath his coat sleeves. Another few slaps on the floor of snake bellies and he could no longer look at them, but turned his eyes towards the ceiling.

“Do you remember when you said no one would trust me?” Hisoka grinned, clutching his hip and leaning against a glass enclosure dramatically. The snake inside was spooked by Hisoka’s ass and slithered under a fake log. Chrollo wasn’t listening to him at all. He wouldn’t stop staring at a corner in the ceiling. His slicked back hair had started to unfurl. This unexpected behavior made Hisoka falter in whatever speech he was about to make.

The aggressive orange snake finally nosed his glass cage open with a stifled creak. A sweaty hand gripped the front of Hisoka’s crop top and tugged insistently. Hisoka slunk forward and gave up on his pose to stare at the widened eyes and pallid complexion. His eyes settled on the orange snake as it made its way towards them. Probably only to reach the frogs on the other side. But Chrollo seemed to think he would be indiscriminately attacked any second.

His mouth moved in a silent _pick them up, pick them up, pick them up,_ _pick them up_ mantra. There was hissing directly underneath; Hisoka looked down to see at least seven snakes had escaped and were rapidly crawling the floors.

A long, thin snake wormed its way between Chrollo’s boots and brushed up against his right ankle. Yellow eyes moved back up to see the whites of Chrollo’s. He watched as the irises rolled back in his head.

Hisoka let out a surprised _oh my!_ as his boss’s knees crumpled under dead weight. With quick reflexes manicured hands slipped one under his ass and under one arm. The small man was out like a light. Skin cold and snake still curled against his boot as Hisoka hefted him up to lean on his shoulder.

“How peaceful ♦” Hisoka muttered to himself as he felt Chrollo’s steady breathing on his neck. He certainly hadn’t intended for the man to pass out, but it was a pleasant surprise. Chrollo’s hair smelled of some musky gel and his dead weight was off kilter although he weighed less than Hisoka would have estimated. His torso was muscular but his legs were thin under his black jeans. His boots seemed to weigh more than the rest of his legs.

He bungee gummed the large orange snake in a rubbery net and ended up taking the red rattlesnake next to him too. That was enough, he decided, as he shifted Chrollo into a position to be supported with one arm. He walked out the door they had picked open earlier, and let it slam behind him with the chaos of snake bodies still twisting around the building. The snakes he had caught weren’t worth as much as the sight of Chrollo passed out in his arms or this novel knowledge that he was deathly afraid of snakes. He would have a hard time explaining that to the rest of the troupe, though, he had a feeling.

He took them to the meeting place early, stuck the gum bag of snakes to a tree branch above them, and laid Chrollo out on the ground. The sun would rise in a few hours and the grass was heavy with dew already. He traced a nail up the man’s bare chest and playfully thumbed his orb earrings, wondering how much he could get away with before Chrollo would wake up and bitch him out for, well—everything.

Instead he rustled through the lunch Shizuku had packed for after the heist and hidden in a bush. He grabbed a beer for himself and cracked it open before retrieving a bottle of water; he put on his sweetest of smiles and poured it over Chrollo’s head. “Good morning ♠”  

Chrollo spluttered like he was drowning although Hisoka had been very careful to only pour it over his forehead. His eyes looked almost lifeless as he blinked away whatever world he had travelled to to get away from that personal snake hell. He didn’t say anything for a moment, but brought a hand up to wipe away the water on his forehead.

Hisoka took a sip of beer and balanced it on the cross tattoo on Chrollo’s forehead, effectively stopping Chrollo’s hands. “Want some?” But Chrollo knocked the can off and onto the ground as he sat up. The beer emptied rapidly into the grass. Hisoka didn’t bother to pick it back up. “Someone’s salty.”

Staring at the back of Chrollo’s messy wet hair he could see a few cowlicks acting wildly and Hisoka wondered how self-conscious Chrollo was about his appearance. Or about his image concerning fainting in front of a subordinate. “How did you know?” His voice was raspy like he had just woken up from a long sleep.

“Excuse me?”

“How did you know about my irrational fear of snakes?” his body language was terse and he refused to look at Hisoka. He wasn’t taking this entire ordeal well. Surely he must have let his guard down in some very prominent way to let such volatile information escape without his notice. Hisoka felt the tiniest bit bad for him.

“I didn’t.”

At that, Chrollo turned around to look at him.

“I was trying to make a joke.”

Chrollo squinted. “I don’t understand.”

“I wanted to set all of the snakes free and make you question my motives and then say ‘I could be a snake in the grass’ or something. Get it?”

Chrollo said nothing. His mouth hung open slightly.

“I thought that all of those dangerous snakes out of those cages would make you nervous—a normal level of nervous—and maybe I could offer to make you flip a coin to make me put the snakes back. I brought a fake coin to see if you could tell the difference.” He laughed slightly at the thought of his own joke. “Get it?”

“Y-you, seriously— _a joke_?” His eyebrows furrowed and Hisoka looked even more pleased than he had a moment ago. “All of this for a joke?” he spat, venom lacing his words.

“I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

“You,” his eyes scanned the snakes hanging over Hisoka’s shoulder, “are an idiot.”

“And you’re cute ♥”

Any other insults died in this throat. He ran a hand through his hair and tried to smooth the mess into its usual slicked back glory, but it stayed a frizzy mess. His jaw ticked and he looked down at the grass like the beer soaking into the ground was the most interesting thing about this night.

“I’ve gotten to see you flustered in so many ways today.”

“We will tell no one about this.”

Hisoka leaned over and let Chrollo’s hair tickle his nose as he whispered in his ear. “Or maybe we should. Wanna flip a coin?”


End file.
